Racist ice cream?
 

http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyhete...631018,00.html
(Link is in swedish)

Ok, so this has to be the stupidest thing that ever happened here in Sweden.
For you non-swedes (Which I guess are most of you) here is a little background info.
Since the seventies, the biggest ice cream company here in Sweden has had an ice cream called 'Nogger'. It's called that since it contains nougat, and Nogger is pretty catchy name I suppose. So, for like 25 years, no one had a problem with that name, until just a few weeks ago when this ice cream company released a variant of it with a licorice cover. They called it Nogger Black, simple enough.

Suddenly, this ice cream is racist. It's called Nogger, which is similar to 'nigger', it's black (Like colored people!), and it has "cool ghetto text" which apparently is something black people deal with. Some group called 'Centre against racism' (Which I thought consisted of clever people) is all up in flames over this.


I didn't know what to say when I heard this.

1: First of all, as I said earlier, this ice cream has been called 'Nogger'
since the seventies, and in NO FUCKING WAY is it meant to be racist. Nigger isn't even a swedish word. Yes, I understand some people can see a connection between 'nogger' and 'nigger', but please! We're talking about ice cream here, nothing more!

2: It contains licorice, which is black. Yes, really. It is black, and I'm pretty sure its reason for being black is not to make fun of colored people.

So, what it all comes down to, people are getting upset...by an ice cream. I guess some people just have to be upset about something.

My question, am I being stupid? Should I be upset by this? Is this ice cream company an evil racist organisation? Am I blind or is this matter just plain stupid? I'm leaning towards the latter, what do you think?

http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/0504/13/nogger200.jpg
http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/0504/13/logga.jpg

The lettering for 'black' certainly looks like tagging/graffiti, which is assoicated with urban areas and blacks. This was probably a dumb move on the part of the packaging people. Can we come up with any other reason to use a graffiti font for the logo? It certainly doesn't match the 'Nogger' part of the logo.

Is 'black' the Swedish word for 'black'?

(I haven't decided if this is stupid or not yet.)

it's not like it was Darkie Toothpaste, which did rename itself in the early 90s to Darlie...

http://www.prmuseum.com/kendrix/gifs/darkie2.jpg

still, i'm going to say that its words, english words in a swedish context... it should mean nothing.

I don't think it's racist. Perhaps slightly controversial, but really, some people go too far.

I wish I could find icecream that looked like that in Canada. mmm...

No, it's the english black. Black in swedish is 'svart'.
Yeah, I suppose the text could be associated to that, but to call it racist, isn't that going a little far?
Also, if people associate graffiti with blacks, doesn't that say something about their own views, not that of the ice cream company?

Well assuming I can undestand the poll, most people would agree with you:

(ja means "Yes" right)

Is it common to use English terms in Sweedish products? And, for the flip side, in Sweeden is the English word 'black' more likely to be related to a color or to a race?

@the_marq

Yes, 'ja' means yes, 'nej' means no, so in that poll most people agreed this was pretty stupid.

yes, it has become more and more common. I believe the word black is more likely to be associated to color than race.

OK, given all of that, I think that the people who designed the packaging have tendencies to stereotype, but aren't racists. This isn't so bad that the product should be boycotted or removed from the shelves, but it is worth pointing out as an "oops" and maybe next time the package designers will think twice.

(And, sorry about all of those double Es in "Sweedish". I have no idea what I was thinking. Bad fingers!)

Heh, quite ok. It seems this is a common mistake english speakers do. I've seen lots and lots of these mistakes, maybe it's just very easy to misspell.

I think the real scandal is being overlooked in all the racist fluff.

Why would they ruin a perfectly good ice cream bar with a black licorice coating?? What did that ice cream ever do to them?

Yeah I agree with that. Licorice and ice cream is just plain wrong.

An excellent point, Rat. I just came back to the thread to reread the description of the bar; I thought that the licorice was on the inside, and I couldn't imagine an easier way to crack a tooth. But even on the outside, bleah, I'll put that alongside the Cheese 'n' Nutella thread.

Scandinavians love licorice....

when I first arrived in Iceland, the first thing I learned to say, "Ekki Lakkris"

No licorice.

What about the word 'nigger'? Is that word recognised in Sweden? I know it is not actually a Swedish word - but would its meaning be known to everyone? (e.g. most people here know what merde means)

I have to say that I'm not really sure what to make of this case.
I don't believe that it is absurdly stupid that some people took offense. I do wonder about who ever marketed this ice cream - surely it would have occured to them that this would be seen as offensive?

I do agree with Redlemon about the 'graffiti' text though.

Two words: brain freeze.

Eww, licorice and ice cream.

No, I don't think it's racist. Poorly designed package, perhaps, but not racist.

Hey, even if it was racist, what is the harm?

This ice cream isn't hurting anyone, the man isn't keeping this ice cream down.

Really.... choose your battles

Yes, of course the word nigger is known in sweden, but should a swedish company be forced to change the name of a swedish product because of a foreign word?
Should Mercedes change their name because it can remind people of 'merde'? (Ok, a bit of a stretch but you get the point)

Also, there is the fact that it has been called Nogger because of it's nougat contents for 25 years and no one has complained, but the second a licorice version comes out some one freaks out. Why would it suddenly be racist because the cover is black?

Yes, I can see how some people might find it offensive, I just think it's insane to get upset over the name of an ice cream. It never was any racist thought behind it, and it still isn't.

How the hell can ice cream be racist??? Maybe if it had something in it that made black or whatever people melt or something, or made some kind of malicious reference to black people. But just being called black??? I don't think so. By the way, many of the most notorious graffiti artists are white.

Beautiful! I was wondering if anyone, besides myself, thought that was a nasty assed taste sensation. Licorice...ptoooey.

Whether or not this ice cream is racist (sorry just typing that sentence cracks me up) in some subtle shade of the word, I don't think it could be intended to be racially derogatory. Perhaps it is naively patronising, like blackie toothpaste, but if the people marketing this stuff actually had a problem with black people, surely they wouldn't use imagery associated with black people to shift it.

Lobby groups from an almost entirely white country protesting against the usage of imagery associated with black culture to market a product from that country, on the other hand? Now that sounds like racism to me.

Quite clearly this is not a real anti-racist group. There are two realistic possibilities I can see here:

1) They are a secret society of rogue comedians, posing as a group of political activists with the sole aim of bringing the expression "racist ice cream" into the common parlance.

2) They are a group of renegade aesthetes who, having consulted a lawyer, have discovered that there is no law against putting liquorice on ice cream and have decided to have this muck taken off the shelves by the only means available to them.

Even the 'urban graffiti' connection is stretching it a bit, guys. Come on...

Yeah,..something like chocolate and peanut butter. But I digreese

I don't know whether or not it is racist: It's not for me to decide because I'm not black. I'll assume everyone who replied is black so that they can speak for black people that nigger or nogger or whatever isn't racist etc.

It is a rather poor marketing choice though in my opinion. Nogger is cool, nuthin' wrong with it in my opinion. I tend to think more of egg nog though. That would be a cool ice cream flavor. They should come up with a second line of Nogger ice cream that's egg nog flavored.

I didn't know there was a large population of black people in Sweden to complain about this. Or is it the "traditional Swedes" who complained this was racist? According to your poll, 2% thought it was racist. What's the problem then? 2% is not statistically significant (in my opinion).

So who exactly is upset about this?

Well I'm kind of upset this came up as an issue at all here in Sweden. We have worse problems with racism (Neo nazis and other nasty stuff) than bitching whether a name for an ice cream should be considered racist or not.
I'm upset one of the biggest newspapers in sweden actually considers this newsworthy. The only thing this stunt is going to do is to fuel the fire of racists. Giving them the chance to say stuff like:
'Now you can't even say something that are similar to certain words without being branded racist. We'd all be better off kicking them all out'

I don't think anything good will come of this.

This has to be the funniest thing I have heard about today. I am still laughing uncontrolably. :)

I'm with ratbastid...the major problem with the company is not with its logo, it's with the decision to ruin perfectly good icecream with one of the most noxious "foods" on the planet...licorice.

Not a bit, a lot.

There's no problem with calling it noggar black, seems logicial to me and anyway as you say swedish is a different language so it really doesn't mean anything.

I think the real question here is:

Who the hell thought licorice and ice cream was a good idea in the first place? Seriously, blech.

Some people feel it is their moral duty and obligation to be offended at the slightest hint of racism, real or not.

This distracts them from having to confront real racism.

Yeah, I agree. However I do believe that this group usually does some real work again racism, so it really surprised me when they did something so dumb like this.

The stupidest thing is, the Centre Against Racism, which is a government-funded group by the way (that's MY tax money at work here!), reported it to the wrong authorities.

The general opinion about this seems to be that it's a pretty good ice cream, but not nearly as good as the old Lakrits-Puck. I haven't tried it yet, as I must try the new Sponge-Bob Square Pants ice cream first.

:lol: Hahaha. Very funny!

I don't think it's racist. I mean, geez, it's ice cream. I think there are bigger things to be worrying about.

On another note, this ice cream doesn't sound very good.

Of course it's stupid. I mean, didn't Abe Lincoln outlaw racism at the end of the civil war? Why should blacks be offended by anything anymore, they are no longer slaves, and white people have been more than accomodating towards black people since then.

Rename it "Nogger Black, not that there's anything wrong with that".

As much as I hate to say this, I don't think they're over-reacting. I'm assuming, of course, that it was some kind of advocacy group that complained. That's just how advocacy groups operate. It's completely political and part of a larger campaign. Do they actually believe that an ice cream bar with a poorly chosen font for the word "black" is keeping black people down? I doubt it. But they say it anyway to keep everyone aware of the assumptions made when choosing a font like that (loosely associated with low-income urban populations, which are loosely associated with black people). But don't jump on me for defending this practice. I am not exactly a fan of the tactics that advocacy groups use. All I am saying is that there's a motivation here besides, "I'm a minority and I am sooooooo sensitive that everything on the planet offends me."

Wait..... licorice? On sweet, innocent ice cream?? YUCK!!!!!!!!